SpaceX is preparing for the launch of its latest Starship test flight from its Starbase facility in southern Texas as soon as Monday, March 3. The Federal Aviation Administration gave the okay for the company to move forward with the mission on Feb. 26.
The mission will seek to accomplish the objectives set for January’s flight test of the more than 400-foot-tall rocket, dubbed Flight 7, which ended with the destruction of the upper stage over the Turks and Caicos Islands. Liftoff is set for 5:30 p.m. CST (6:30 p.m. EST, 2330 UTC).
Spaceflight Now will have joint live coverage with LabPadre beginning about two hours prior to liftoff.
The mission will see the launch of the Super Heavy booster, tail number B15, and the Ship upper stage (also referred to simply as Starship), tail number S34. This will be the second time SpaceX attempts the launch of a Block 2 Starship.
As with the previous attempt, the plan is to perform a series of demonstrations with Starship, including the relight of a Raptor engine while in space, the deployment of simulator Starlink Version 3 satellites and a propulsive splashdown in the Indian Ocean a little more than an hour following liftoff.
If conditions are right, Booster 15 will attempt to return to its launch site to be caught by the chopstick arms on the tower known as ‘Mechazilla.’ If successful, it will be the third catch out of four opportunities. SpaceX waived off a catch attempt during the Flight 6 mission on Nov. 19, 2024, due to a problem on the tower.
Procedural changes, similar mission
As is the case up to this point, SpaceX continues to refine both the fueling and mission timelines for its fully integrated Starship rocket as it continues to iterate on the vehicle. This go around, the loading of liquid oxygen on Starhip on both the upper stage and booster are a few seconds earlier each, while the loading of liquid methane shifts later in the timeline by a few seconds.
The launch timeline is virtually identical to that of Flight 7. The biggest shifts are with the payload deployment demonstration and the Raptor in-space relight demonstration, which happen nine and five seconds earlier respectively.
The lack of dramatic changes is explained by SpaceX in that they want to tick the boxes left open after January’s mission.
“The upcoming flight will fly the same suborbital trajectory as previous missions and will target objectives not reached on the previous test, including Starship’s first payload deployment and multiple reentry experiments geared towards returning the upper stage to the launch site for catch,” SpaceX wrote on its website.
One notable difference is in the number of Starlink simulators that are hitching a ride this time. Flight 7 aimed to deploy 10 of these dummy satellites, but Flight 8 only includes four. The company didn’t state a reason for why it reduced the number.
If SpaceX is able to deploy them on this mission, they are designed to follow the same suborbital trajectory as S34 and burn up in the atmosphere, with any debris falling in the Indian Ocean. Assuming all goes well, this would be the first time that SpaceX deploys a payload from its Starship rocket.
Fixing what went wrong
In a lengthy blog post published to its website, SpaceX detailed the issues encountered during January’s Flight 7 mission. Chief among them was the inability to get beyond roughly five minutes into flight without a chain of events causing a loss of communication with S33 and eventually the loss of that stage less than 12 minutes into the mission.
SpaceX said it last received telemetry from the vehicle about eight minutes and 20 seconds into the flight. It said communications were gone before any rules were violated that would trigger the Autonomous Flight Safety System, which is also referred to as a Flight Termination System.
The company said it’s post-flight analysis was able to determine that the AFSS did trigger and “breakup occurred within Flight Termination System expectations.”
“The most probable root cause for the loss of ship was identified as a harmonic response several times stronger in flight than had been seen during testing, which led to increased stress on hardware in the propulsion system,” SpaceX wrote. “The subsequent propellant leaks exceeded the venting capability of the ship’s attic area and resulted in sustained fires.”
While the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did clear SpaceX to proceed with the launch of the Flight 8 mission through what it called “the required and comprehensive safety review,” it did note in its statement dated Feb. 26 that the Starship Flight 7 mishap investigation remains ongoing.
SpaceX stated in its blog post that it was working to either close the investigation prior to the launch of Flight 8 or receive a flight safety determination. The FAA describes this as an evaluation by the agency into the circumstances of the anomaly, a rocket’s safety-critical systems and other environmental factors.
A similar determination was made on July 25, 2024, which allowed for the return to flight of the Falcon 9 rocket, following the July 11 upper stage mishap seen during the Starlink 9-3 mission.
In response to the Flight 7 mishap, SpaceX enacted changes, like adding a new nitrogen purge system and additional vents to help deter the likelihood of another fire in the so-called attic of Starship. The attic is a name for the aft section of the vehicle where there is an unpressurized space between the aft heat shield and the bottom of the liquid oxygen tank.
SpaceX said future versions of Starship will use the Raptor 3 engine, which it said will help by “reducing the attic volume and eliminating the majority of joints that can leak into this volume.” SpaceX hasn’t said how soon it intends to roll out a Starship with that new engine.
“As part of the investigation, an extended duration static fire was completed with the Starship flying on the eighth flight test,” SpaceX wrote. “The 60-second firing was used to test multiple engine thrust levels and three separate hardware configurations in the Raptor vacuum engine feedlines to recreate and address the harmonic response seen during Flight 7.
“Findings from the static fire informed hardware changes to the fuel feedlines to vacuum engines, adjustments to propellant temperatures, and a new operating thrust target that will be used on the upcoming flight test.”
As for the Super Heavy booster, Flight 7 was largely successful with the exception of the boostback burn. That maneuver saw 12 out of 13 planned engines reignite for the burn, which lasted about 44 seconds.
SpaceX said that the Raptor that didn’t relight during the boostback burn aborted during startup “due to a low-power condition in the igniter system.” The engine went on to operate normally during the landing burn.
“Raptor engines on upcoming flights have a pre-planned igniter upgrade to mitigate this issue,” SpaceX said.
Ship catch next?
Among the design changes on Starship Block 2 are catch fittings, which during Flight 8 will be tested for their thermal performance. SpaceX said the fittings on S34 are not weight-bearing.
Many folks in the online space community latched onto a SpaceX filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which asked for a special temporary authority (STA) “to authorize Starship Test Flight 9 vehicle communications.” The application suggests that the next Starship flight could feature a potential upper stage catch attempt.
In a post on his social media site, X, SpaceX founder and special government employee Elon Musk suggested that more data is needed before that can happen.
“We need to perfect ship reentry at extreme temperatures before attempting to catch the ship with the tower arms, like the booster,” Musk wrote.
Musk also appeared on a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in which he said, “I think we’ll achieve reusability of the Ship this year and I think we’ll achieve rapid reusability of the whole stack, Ship and booster, next year.” He said SpaceX “might” be able to refly a Ship in 2025.
This is a real video of a past @SpaceX Starship water landing.
Trying again tomorrow.
We need to perfect ship reentry at extreme temperatures before attempting to catch the ship with the tower arms, like the booster.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2025
